New Delhi: Four years after the RTI Act
came into force, lack of mandatory monitoring mechanism for
its implementation remains an important "lacunae" while
government agencies are shying from disclosure of subsidies
data worth several crores of rupees, Vice-President Hamid
Ansari on Tuesday said.
Speaking at the valedictory function of the two-day CIC
convention here, Ansari highlighted several shortcomings in
the Right to Information Act which continue to plague the
implementation of the transparency legislation in the country.
"An important lacuna has been the lack of a mandatory
monitoring mechanism to look at the implementation of the RTI
Act and to ensure that the Act is implemented in letter and
spirit. Currently, the media and civil society groups are
undertaking this task on an ad hoc basis," he said.
He said Section 4 of the RTI Act mandates every public
authority to publish the manner of execution of subsidy
programmes, including the amounts allocated and details of
beneficiaries.
"This is a significant step when one considers that the
total quantum of subsidies provided by the central and state
governments to the citizens in the country exceeds Rs 2,00,000
crore. While such a process has been initiated with respect
to NREGA, significant work remains to be done on this issue,"
he said.
"There are still doubts about the validity of decisions
taken by individual Commissioners due to a notion that a full
bench of the Information Commission should hear the case that
comes before it," Ansari said.
He said there were issues in the functioning of the
Central and the State information commissions which are
working in "relative isolation" as their decisions were not
available in a systematic manner or in real time to the
general public or even to others.
The Vice-President said the information given by the
agencies are "marked by inconsistency and unevenness."
Ansari also said government agencies were not following
the practise of suo-motu disclosure of crucial information on
their web site or in public domain as mandated under section
four of the RTI Act.
The Vice-President said RTI Act was till now not
available in all the 22 languages listed in the Constitution
of India.
"This issue needs to be addressed at the earliest.
Empowerment would be meaningless if it is sought to be
achieved through a language that the citizen does not
understand," Ansari said.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, October 13, 2009, 22:13